Essays for IIM

On Sunday, Crimea voted to split away from Ukraine and return to the Russian fold. For a vast majority of Crimea’s Russian-speaking population this is an act of redressing a monumental injustice that happened in 1991 when Crimea, which geographically, ethnically and historically is more Russian than many regions of Russia itself, became part of a foreign state as the Soviet Union broke up along arbitrarily drawn administrative borders. However, reuniting a divided people may not have been the prime motive that forced President Vladimir Putin’s hand in Crimea. The Ukraine crisis is viewed in Moscow as a continuation of the Western plan to encircle Russia militarily and torpedo its reintegration efforts in the former Soviet Union. The new leaders in Kiev installed with the West’s support are the same people who staged the “orange revolution” in Ukraine in 2004 and set Ukraine on the path of NATO membership. Strategic catastrophe Ukraine’s induction into NATO would be a strategi...

•         Russian forces in Crimea urged Ukrainian forces to give up their weapons and stand down, as the number of Russian troops and boats on the peninsula continued to grow. Russia built up forces on both sides of the ferry connecting it to Crimea and sent troops across. •         “The facts on the ground in Crimea are deeply troubling,” US president Barack Obama said. “Russia is on the wrong side of history.” •         The Ukrainian ambassador to the UN said 16,000 Russian troops have arrived in Crimea since 26 February. The Russian ambassador retorted that treaties allow 25,000. The Ukrainian envoy argued that the legal cap was 11,000. •         In a feisty meeting at the UN, the Russian ambassador said that Moscow does not consider it its responsibility to return deposed president Viktor Yanukovich to power. •    ...